By Allan Fox: If Manny Pacquiao is going to be fighting in April then his promoters at Top Rank are going to need to act very quickly because there isn’t an opponent and there’s still not a venue for the fight. It’s really late in the game for a fight that soon to be taking place. Sports Illustrated doesn’t believe the fight will take place in April, as they see the desire for that date is not realistic because Top Rank isn’t pushing to make it happen.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach doesn’t want Pacquiao coming back in April, according to Sports Illustrated. He prefers that Pacquiao rest up until September to recover from his knockout at the hands of Juan Manuel Marquez. Also, a problem with Pacquiao’s next fight is that a huge site fee that would be involved with getting a site on short notice.
There’s been talk of the fight taking place in a foreign country, and that would take a lot of work. There’s also risk involved because it’s unknown whether a Pacquiao fight will sell tickets if they place it in Dubai, Singapore and Macua, the three areas that has been mentioned.
There’s no real need for Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, to push for an April fight because he’s got a big money fight for Pacquiao basically guaranteed for September against Juan Manuel Marquez. That fight could give Pacquiao his biggest payday of his career, and I’m sure Arum doesn’t want to take any risks by putting Pacquiao against someone that could upset those plans by having him take part in a risky tune-up fight in April.
It’s like with Antonio Margarito when he was coming off of a year layoff and three separate eye surgeries. Instead of having Margarito fight a tune-up to see if his surgically repaired eye would hold up, Arum waited instead and put him in with Miguel Cotto and his bad eye eventually caused the fight to be halted after it closed up in the 9th round. It just looked like a cash out.
With Pacquiao coming off of a bad knockout there’s questions whether he can still take a head shot, and so it makes sense for Arum not to put him in a low money tune-up fight in April because if he really can’t take a shot anymore then that fight might be his last. That’s why it makes sense for Arum to keep Pacquiao out of action until he does get the big money fight with Marquez. If he can’t take a punch and is knocked out, then Arum, Pacquiao and Marquez will get that final big payday.
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